Nationalities - An important tell?

Over the course of my very limited Poker career, I've found that noting the nationality of your opponent's is always a good thing, since they can provide valuable information. Here are a few examples I've seen, only on Full Tilt Poker though, don't know if this applies to other sites, and please don't be offended by this, these are only trends I have noticed in the Micro limits.

USA + Canada
99%
You can automatically tell hey are fishes by their bet sizes, call range (if you get to see some showdowns from them), stack sizes, etc. If the person is American, I almost always loosen up against them, unless they have autorebuy to 20/100 BB's and make decent bet sizes.

European(any and all countries)
20%
I've run into alot of what seem to be fellow pokerstrategists, be it either BSS's or SSS's. Specially people from Germany and Eastern European countries seem to be good players. I've found UK people to be the fishiest. I always assume they are good unless I see midstacks or non-autorebuyers, but I mostly give them the benefit of the doubt.

Australia + New Zealand
80%
Though they are the most scarce, the ones I have found have mostly been fishes. Again it's nice to play against most of them until I see, or bet sizes, stack etc., show otherwise.

Asian
60%
They are by far the luckiest fish! I have found a few regulars, specially South Korean, but the rest, specially Chinese are great fishes to play against.

Latin American
80%
Not only fishy, but also the easiest to tilt! I know from being Latin American myself that we can be much more aggresive and stubborn, and one losing showdown and they go on tilt right away! Specially the Peruvian players hehe.

I have not encountered any African players yet, so I cannot comment on them, but I thought I might share this little tip with people. Again I do not intend to offend anyone with this post, and by being registered here at PokerStrategy.com you are already way ahead in skills/knowledge/mentality than the fishes I mention here.

I find the same thing at FT. Sometimes it seems like the FT software in the US didn't come with a fold option. What I'm finding weird is that I'm more profitable from better players. The bad beats I take from the fish put me in the red. Making any plays at these players is useless since they can't fold, and betting for value should work if you can get a hand to hold up.

From my experience, people from Scandinavia seem to have a good poker school for the LAG style, at least in PLO. At PLO25, there isn't really that many good players. Seeing how people with unimproved aces go broke on the flop over and over again on the deepstack tables multiway for 250 BB is always amazing. Nationality isn't the most important thing here. Chat activity is a much better tell. If they win their coinflips and than start making fun at other guys because of bad play indicates the fish much better than nationality.
It happened to me before that I got my money in on the flop with a wrap draw against the nutstraight on a 478 board. I got my money in as the slight favorite and had to listen to insults in the chat for 10 minutes after loosing the the hand.
I guess its a better tell. I might be wrong though

Originally posted by pablomezaAustralia + New Zealand
80%
Though they are the most scarce, the ones I have found have mostly been fishes. Again it's nice to play against most of them until I see, or bet sizes, stack etc., show otherwise.

Originally posted by pablomezaAustralia + New Zealand
80%
Though they are the most scarce, the ones I have found have mostly been fishes. Again it's nice to play against most of them until I see, or bet sizes, stack etc., show otherwise.

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Atoks: 18.11.2009 17:56.

I'm sure the "more developed" countries offer the most fish on the micros and lows. However the higher up the ladder u manage the climb, the less attention I'd pay to "nationality reads". IMHO the nationality of a player tells about as much about their poker skills as duck farts contribute to the thinning of the ozone layer.

@Waiboy and justkyle88 - Of course you guys aren't fishes! I just haven't faced more than 1 or 2 TAG Australians yet, I haven't seen any in the Micro stakes so far.

@ihufa - Of course that is my main focus! I'm just posting this to start a discussion on a 'trend' I have noticed. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone you find out there, but it can sometimes help to quickly identify the type of player you are up against.

@Atoks - That could be true, but I'm sure most if not all agree that, at least in Micro, Americans are the fishiest out of them all, and surely any extra bit of information can help out when playing against and maybe adapting to someone.

Berkstajger - LOL I actually do agree Slovenians are quite good. Most I have found are TAG's and I try to avoid them.

Paskkal29 - Sure I am a fish, and the %'s are OBVIOUSLY made up, but they're just there to give an 'idea'. If you don't have anything good to contribute, why even post?

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Ardarandir: 18.11.2009 22:17.

Originally posted by ksh198
German->fucking idiots
French->fucking idiots with luck
Korean->solid players
Chinese->Don't know much about the game
French->Have to say 2 times they are fucking idiots with luck

In my opinion what you do here is like finding faces and shapes in the clouds: they seem very convincing but it's just random stuff.

I find 2 possible reasons why people in a country may be better or worse than others:
1. On AVERAGE people with bigger incomes are worse ( an indian player vs a french one, guess who plays better)
2. On AVERAGE it depends on how well poker it advertised there and the mentalities.

That means americans are the worst players by very very far, followed by most developed european countries somehow on an equal place, and the best ones are people with other traditional values and very small income (Asia, Africa). I guess russians are special since they tend to get good at any concievable thing from iceskating to playing chess and now poker.

Of course at the micro-limits you are wasting your time if you are considering these factors.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by GunFlavoured: 19.11.2009 09:43.

Originally posted by SallaMC
Chat activity is a much better tell. If they win their coinflips and than start making fun at other guys because of bad play indicates the fish much better than nationality.

+1 Anyone talking smack or bitching about bad beats all night is usually horrible. THEY'RE NOT BAD BEATS, YOU'RE JUST SHIT. The other day some fish was complaining about bad beats, checked his stats he'd lost $20,000 over 3.5K SnGs. Keep grinding the low limits buddy!